2C1C- Episode 175

Good episode, although the sound levels were worse than usual. I could barely hear what Kennon said throughout the episode and the volume of Kyle's voice was way much higher than the others.

 

Some input: Levelator is a great tool for automatically adjusting the audio levels (specifically built for podcasts). Give it a try, it's free. Also, if you record every person separately (don't know if you do that or not), applying some sort of filter that takes away the lower frequencies on Kennon's voice and the higher frequencies on Kyle's voice would help make the listening more pleasant.

 

You're doing a great job for the community guys, keep up the good work!

Yeah. We had scheduling and technical difficulties that precluded me having the usual amount of time editing. I'm not sure why my audio was drastically quieter than the other guys. We had to make a last minute switch to Google Hangouts instead of the usual Skype, so I'm wondering if that had a hand in it. I'll have to test it out to make certain.

 

Thanks for the Levelator suggestion! I'll be very happy to check it out this evening. I may even let it have a pass at the episode and see about uploading a replacement this evening.

Good episode as always. 

 

Mill is close but not there yet. I've toyed around with a HoD Ten Towers using Naval Escort. I'd love to hear Greg build it on the cast. 

I may have missed one, but it seems like 8/10 of Aaron's list were Prized cards (all but Mummers and Edmure?). I think that speaks well of having fleshed out the prized idea, even if in some cases the prized values seem a bit arbitrary. 

 

As for the major changes this pack brought on, well, it's the cop-out answer but I've really enjoyed the prized mechanic. It's been easy to grasp, generally easy to remember (except on plots), and on the whole, pretty fun in both melee and joust. The aspect I underestimated initially was the putting of power on opponent's houses - that has just played out very nicely to help re-value power challenges early on. I think that's been *GREAT* for the game.

Ostensibly good players need to stop making statements implying that Ten Towers (and complete mill as a way of going about a win condition on a more general level) isn't a waste of time. It's a bad card and you should feel bad for implying otherwise. To be able to make mill a good deck, you have to have it in a form that can reliably mill the opponent's deck within, say, three turns, because otherwise the opponent already has enough cards to play with so it doesn't matter. Take, for instance, Greg's maester mill deck that took the top 4 of the Tulsa regional in 2012.
 
Ten Towers is not easy to use. If you're in a position where you can easily trigger it repeatedly to good effect, you're winning, and it sure isn't because of the mill, it's because you're already in that position.
 
The only mill I've ever seen be effective (Greg monstrosity aside) is the style that isn't concerned with actually decking you - all it wants is to get enough in the discard to have fun with the likes of Asha Greyjoy and Baelor Blacktyde, and it wants to have a reliable enough stream of triggers to repeatedly use cards like Support of Saltcliffe, Fishmonger's Square and (to a much lesser extent) Corpse Lake. Ten Towers is not the way forward for mill, and nor is Heads on Pikes.
 
Oh, I remember the other time mill is effective - when it's on yourself. Because it turns out having a small deck is better, as long as it's not stopping you from drawing. If you take 20 cards out of your opponent's deck, you are no closer to winning than you were before. Your opponent? Well, they know for a fact they're not drawing those 20 cards anymore, and that allows them to change their gameplan because they know that they have a greater chance of drawing what's left - information you aren't privy to. So until you get them down to below 2 cards in their deck, you're actually helping your opponent.
 
And that's not even getting into recursion, which I hear is a thing in this game apparently. I'm sure your Bara opponent is going to be devastated that you shoved his Royal Entourages, Refugees and dupes into his discard pile. I'm sure your Targaryen opponent is going to be outraged that you put her Jorah Mormont into her discard pile so that she can use Ambush from the Plains to get a free discard off him AND get him back into hand for an additional use. I'm sure your Martell opponent is beside itself with grief over your discarding Darkstar from its deck.
 
Sorry, this probably wasn't the place for this rant. But the lack of mutual condemnation of Ten Towers and the archetype it suggests necessitated it!
 
 
PS Good cast
 
 
Edit: final thing on Ten Towers, a quote from the genius that is Florian Maas:
 

 

Ten Tower is yet another attempt to make GJ players build a Mill deck.
But the designers obviously have yet to learn that winning challenges unopposed with a lot of STR to spare and milling your opponent are two inherently incompatible themes. Because why wouldn't you just try to win the game, if your board presence is that dominant?
I intended to say "why wouldn't you try to win the game the normal way" there, but then I realized that's kinda stupid because MILL ISNT EVEN A FREAKING WIN CONDITION.

I haven't listened to the podcast yet but just looking at the title I think its a really good idea. A lot of these cards were very difficult to comment on when released so a look back to see how all of the cycle is impacting the meta in general is a good call.

Edit - listened to it now. I second the prop for Libertalia, great game. And I was just thinking this morning about the lack of Frey support having had the Frey Armsman out, very disappointing.

Well, ****. Florian wins. Hate that guy.

Aha! Glad to hear that you're with me on the Ten Towers debate, Wamma.


Though, it does again make me wonder what the game might be like if mill were made an actual win condition.

I think Brass Link means it can't be. Greg's deck, and other similar concepts, has shown it's too easy to mill out an entire opponent's deck if you really want to do just that. At the very least, Brass Link would need to be restricted. But even then I'm not sure I'm a fan of such a binary win condition - get through 59 cards, worthless; get through 60, victory! I mean, I guess you can make a similar argument for the distinction between 14 and 15 power, but it feels more obvious with mill for some reason. Can't explain it.

Maybe it's my ears or speakers or someting. Will sounds quiet this week, but everything else sounds fairly normal. Maybe some backround noise.

You guys have had some great 'casts over the past month, don't get me wrong, but man do I really miss Darryl!

 

Also, I was shocked to be reminded that Mummer's Ford actually WAS part of the C&D cycle. It feels like so long ago we were complaining about Rivers!

 

I am also interested to hear your thoughts on Wheels again. I can't remember at the moment, but were you all talking about banning or just restricting it? Would any of you guys be opposed to an outright ban?

I want an outright ban, but will settle for restriction for now.  Nothing is not an option.

DARRYL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great episode. One of the best in a while just in terms of insight and good discussion topic. Thanks, as always!